


Uncertainty

by heliodor



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Nervousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 03:54:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21009305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heliodor/pseuds/heliodor
Summary: “So now what?” Aziraphale asked. His hand drifted towards Crowley’s elbow, but a second before his fingertips made contact with Crowley’s blazer he turned his hand back towards his own body in an awkward little waving motion.





	Uncertainty

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of a warmup ficlet as I try to get my brain back in order.
> 
> A lot has happened since that last time I did any writing and now all the video games in the world are being released. Pray for me for I am weak.

“So now what?” Aziraphale asked. His hand drifted towards Crowley’s elbow, but a second before his fingertips made contact with Crowley’s blazer he turned his hand back towards his own body in an awkward little waving motion. Anyone watching might have thought he had spontaneously attempted to perform a sad approximation of hula dancing. In truth an actual attempt would have looked much worse.

For his part Crowley strode along beside Aziraphale as casual as you please with his hands tucked in his pockets. His shoulders jerked slightly upwards before settling back into their characteristic slouch. “I don’t know about you, but I think it’s time for a nap. Saving the world takes it out of you.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. And then, “Oh, no, I meant. What do we do now that we’ll be left alone?”

“Oh. That.” Crowley’s mouth twisted into a charming moue. “I assumed that we’d be doing nothing from here on out.”

“Nothing?” Aziraphale stopped in the middle of a crosswalk, startling when a motorist honked at him to get on with it and hurrying to catch back up. “We can’t do nothing! Can we?”

“I don’t see why not. It’s what we wanted to do all along. Now you can spend all your time planning where you’ll go for tapas and you won’t have to take a break to do any work. We’re retired. You can do what retirees do.” Crowley took his hands out of his pockets in order to wave a few grand gestures as he turned to face Aziraphale more. His stride reminded Aziraphale of a sidewinder traversing a sand dune, fluid but strange. “Go on a cruise. Take painting lessons or cooking lessons or any lessons; it’s your choice really. Close up the bookshop and move to the country. The world is your oyster.”

“I like oysters,” Aziraphale agreed.

Crowley’s eyebrows pinched together over his sunglasses. “There you go then. Eat oysters. It doesn’t matter what we do anymore. There’s no way to plan against whatever’s coming next. We’ve already done the impossible. There’s no precedent for what we are now.”

“Ah, I see. Might as well enjoy ourselves in that case. You raise an excellent point, my dear boy.” Aziraphale smiled in a way he hoped didn’t look too helpless or wistful. It was a closed mouth kind of smile, not the kind that set his eyes twinkling and crinkling at the corners just so to reveal all his innermost joy. That natural sense of joy was at the moment a little confused.

The thing was Aziraphale was still an angel, and angels are wired to do things a certain way: mainly that they’re meant to follow divine orders. Aziraphale still believed in God and Her plans. He was more confused than ever about what exactly those plans entailed, but he believed. How could he follow his essential angelic nature cut off from Heaven? How could he be cut off from Heaven and yet seemingly not cut off from God?

Unaware of the stirring theological debate going on in Aziraphale, Crowley carried on. “You might want to take some time to sort out your books. I told you I saw some new titles on the shelves.”

“Right right.” Aziraphale wrung his hands together. “Would you like to come with me? We could see if Adam restored my wine cabinet.”

“Not tonight,” Crowley answered as gently as the night before when he’d reminded his friend that the shop had been destroyed. “I think I’ll go home, check on the Bentley, and go to bed. Can’t sleep with you hovering about.”

“I don’t hover,” Aziraphale started, but stopped forming his argument when Crowley leveled him with a flat stare.

There was really nothing else to say.

They’d helped to save the world and had a lovely lunch at the Ritz. Now they were to part ways and do a little tidying up after all that excitement. 

Aziraphale was suddenly aware of the heart beating in the chest of his corporation and how it possessed the ability to strain itself for no reason. He could feel the pounding in his head, a tingling in his limbs like the blood was curiously somehow not reaching his extremities despite all the extra effort. Without orders there wasn’t really any need for an Arrangement and without an Arrangement there was no need for their paths to cross. Either Aziraphale would never see Crowley again when they parted ways at the next corner, or Aziraphale would see Crowley socially without the buffer of work to serve as a pretense for their meeting.

The latter option was the more attractive one if Aziraphale was being honest with himself. He still wasn’t prepared for just how much more terrifying it was to think about. It would be so much easier to just give Crowley up. To not try to keep him at all. To settle into the comfort of being a solitary angel enjoying God’s Creation and not have to deal with the uncertainty of his feelings for Crowley and what they might mean about him.

“Lunch again tomorrow?” Crowley asked casually, coming to a stop as a group walked by. “I’ll pick you up at noon.”

A smile dawned on Aziraphale’s face. “Take me anywhere I want to go?”

“Well, er, yeah. Sure, yeah,” Crowley replied eloquently as Aziraphale stepped into his personal space. “What are you doing?”

Aziraphale reeled his grin back a little because he wasn’t sure how his mouth would fit against Crowley’s stretched like that. He wasn’t entirely sure how it would fit at all since he’d never tried, but as he gently cupped Crowley’s cheek in one hand he wondered why they hadn’t done this hundreds of years ago. Crowley loosened under his touch, really and truly relaxed unlike his carefully constructed artful sprawl, before he tensed and grabbed Aziraphale by the wrist. He would have stepped back into traffic too if Aziraphale hadn’t put a hand at the small of his back to prevent him from fleeing. 

“I’m sorry.” Aziraphale tried to take his hand from Crowley’s cheek but couldn’t find a good way to withdraw it from Crowley’s grip. “Suppose I should have asked first. I just thought after we held hands last night on the ride home… Well, nevermind what I thought. I’ll see you tomor—”

Crowley cut Aziraphale off by surging forward to return the kiss and mostly succeeding in mashing their noses together rather painfully when he misjudged the distance. It was strange being that close after millennia of keeping a careful distance. Aziraphale forgot to be afraid as Crowley tilted his head to correct the angle. He forgot to be worried when Crowley released his wrist and he let his hand slip down onto Crowley’s chest where he felt Crowley’s frantic heartbeat answer his own.


End file.
